Wednesday, 29 April 2009

Today was our Portsmouth group meeting, and this time our subject was Thailand. One of the families in our group has recently returned from 2 months travelling in Thailand, and brought some really interesting items in to show us including coins, tickets, souvenirs, books and photographs. The older children did reports on Thailand including landscape, sports, general knowledge and schooling which they read out to the group, we did some fruit carving, and sampled the delicious Thai rice pudding that one of the mum's had made. Hannah had learnt about a 12 year novice monk in her "Children Like Me" book which she shared with the group and she came home with some lovely pictures to colour of Thai costumes, animals, a flag and a map.

After the group finished we went to the park nearby for a lovely picnic in the sunshine.

Today we have been on a guided nature walk looking at the wild flowers in Old Southampton Cemetery with the Home Education Group local to Southampton.

The Old Southampton Cemetery is one of England’s earliest municipal cemeteries and is located on the Southampton Common.

Parts of this cemetery are listed Grade II on English Heritage's Register of Historic Parks and Gardens and was established in 1843. The Cemetery is in itself important historically as a record of the people of Southampton and over the years a great diversity of wildlife has developed in it. For these reasons, the City Council has decided that the cemetery will be maintained in such a way as to preserve the diversity of flora and fauna, whilst maintaining its historical interest, and its continuing as a burial ground. It was a fascinating day, the guide was very knowledgeable and told the children a lot about the different wild flowers, insects and trees in the cemetery, and even found them some wild leeks to taste.

It was definitely a indoor, stay-at-home kind of day here today. It's been cold and raining all day.

So this morning Hannah did some lessons at the table - she started her new Horizons Reading workbook, then moved on to Maths, did a devotion from her God and Me book, and finally finished with some research on Thailand. Our home ed group is studying Thailand for our session on wednesday so Hannah got some information together for that, including looking at the life of a 12 year old novice in a Thai monastry.

After lunch Hannah thought she would like to do some baking. Her dad is a chef and she has definitely inherited his passion for cooking. Today she made chocolate chip muffins using an easter egg she still had to make the chocolate chips!

Sunday, 26 April 2009

Yesterday while Hannah was visiting Dean's parents with him, i had a look around the charity shops and found these books.

Hannah is very interested in the weather and has been asking all sorts of questions about clouds, temperature, snow and rain, so i was pleased to find the weather book which answers lots of those questions in a really easy to understand way.

Mother Earths Children is beautiful - i love it! There is a little poem on each page and the art work is adorable.

Jump into January is a lovely look at the seasons, and Pig Gets Stuck complete's Hannah's set of Usbourne Farmyard Tales books.